[Announce] PosChengband 1.0.0

[chris]

Various people have tried to revive Posband, and I have played with the idea of including Pos-style monster races in FA. Having now played PosCheng a bit for the competition, I am really, really glad that none of the other attempts succeeded, because I can't imagine it being done better than this.

The main things I see as missing from the original Pos are

1. the massive slowdown when teams of oppositely aligned monsters were fighting each other on your level;
2. the consequent piles of free loot;
3. the frequent, hilarious bugs and
4. the Possessor class

I would like to see number 4 if you ever get the time and inclination to implement it; losing the others is an improvement.

Awesome job!

EDIT: Beating the warg quest by throwing the wargs at walls and each other is hilarious.

Thanks, Nick. I think most of the credit for [1] thru [3] belongs to the Hengband developers ... I certainly can't claim any credit for game efficiency changes!

As for The Possessor, would players be interested in that? Judging from the characters posted to the ladder, the possessor was not very popular. In fact, I don't see any dumps on the Posband ladder, though I might be missing them if the class does not list as Possessor.

[Arjen]

As for The Possessor, would players be interested in that? Judging from the characters posted to the ladder, the possessor was not very popular. In fact, I don't see any dumps on the Posband ladder, though I might be missing them if the class does not list as Possessor.

Ok, I don't know how I should say this to make myself clear...


MAKE IT HAPPEN!

<-Fan of possessing anything and playing monster classes.

I really do like the possessing system TOME has, finding corpses and take it over, but poschengband had a major difference as uniques have a 100% corpsedrop.

But also the idea behind TOMEnet is nice, kill x amount of monsters and gain the ability to polymorph into that form. This eliminates all uniques and high level monster forms are hard to get as you need to kill x monsters where x=monsterlvl. So for serious forms you need 70 kills Maybe it's a bit too much for solo variant with an insane amount of different monsters.

*edit*
The reason the possessor of posband werent a big succes was the pretty hard start you had. The possessor is just so extremely weak, you have trouble killing the weakest of monsters so you can get another weak body. Yeeks were stronger in posband than a possessor. I just gave up on them.

[chris]

Ok, I don't know how I should say this to make myself clear...


MAKE IT HAPPEN!

<-Fan of possessing anything and playing monster classes.

I really do like the possessing system TOME has, finding corpses and take it over, but poschengband had a major difference as uniques have a 100% corpsedrop.

But also the idea behind TOMEnet is nice, kill x amount of monsters and gain the ability to polymorph into that form. This eliminates all uniques and high level monster forms are hard to get as you need to kill x monsters where x=monsterlvl. So for serious forms you need 70 kills Maybe it's a bit too much for solo variant with an insane amount of different monsters.

*edit*
The reason the possessor of posband werent a big succes was the pretty hard start you had. The possessor is just so extremely weak, you have trouble killing the weakest of monsters so you can get another weak body. Yeeks were stronger in posband than a possessor. I just gave up on them.

Well, that's clear enough

I really haven't played much of any variant with a Possessor class, so I'm really going to need help with making it balanced/fun.

My only comment at this point is that the player's abilities and powers and attacks will need to correspond strongly to what is in the monster bestiary (e.g. If monster has Mana Storm, then so do you, perhaps with level restrictions, fail rates, different damage calc, etc).

Unlike Posband, I lack the energy to roll thru all 1128 monster entries in r_info to make one class work

[Arjen]

Yeah, it might be a *lot* of work as you have to reform every monster into a monster able to be possessed.

In my opinion, being able to posses uniques is quickly overpowered. They are strong to annoy the player, not to make him superhuman strong. Just imagine you being Zeus, the Unicorn, Morgoth, the Variant Maintainer. Pure insanity.

So far my help, I don't know how to code it.

[DaviddesJ]

My only comment at this point is that the player's abilities and powers and attacks will need to correspond strongly to what is in the monster bestiary (e.g. If monster has Mana Storm, then so do you, perhaps with level restrictions, fail rates, different damage calc, etc).

Unlike Posband, I lack the energy to roll thru all 1128 monster entries in r_info to make one class work

Well, I wouldn't try coding them one at a time. You would need rules for translating monster abilities into player abilities. That at least scales as the number of abilities, rather than as the number of monsters. You could implement the translation either within the game engine, or run it offline and generate a separate file of "translated player abilities" to be used by the game.

The biggest problem with such a scheme is that people are going to figure out which monsters happen to translate into the most powerful players, and just focus on those. It becomes less interesting to be able to take on different forms if in practice you just focus on a specific one or two.

[chris]

Powers aren't the issue. Hengband already has support for these via the Imitator and Blue Mage classes (though I'm not happy with the way the code is written). Essentially, all you need is a mapping from monster race flags to code that is already written, and this is easy to do.

Ditto with resistances and things like free action. Speed bonus could be calculated from already existing r_info data (Something like anything up to +5 is free and the balance is prorata level).

Body types require more work, but I was thinking of just using the display character for this (e.g. 'Z' maps to hound body types, etc). This might be a lot of work, but then again, perhaps not. Many monster types will just use the default body type.

Innate attacks? OK, just map monster blow info. This will require new code, but should not be hard. Some monsters should not offer innate attacks, though. For example, 'p' type monsters.

So all of that can be done without any r_info changes.

However, I'd really like the current body to also affect player stats and skills. And for this, alas, I think I actually will roll thru r_info to add data, though 0 defaults might be OK for many monsters. (Example: Possessing a Greater Titan should give massive bonus to Str, penalty to Dex, huge increase in melee skill, but terrible stealth).

As for possessing uniques: We'll cross that bridge when we get there. I think I will make it so uniques no longer automatically drop corpses unless they are wanted.

[Arjen]

Innate attacks? OK, just map monster blow info. This will require new code, but should not be hard. Some monsters should not offer innate attacks, though. For example, 'p' type monsters.

Monks/Mystics?

As for possessing uniques: We'll cross that bridge when we get there. I think I will make it so uniques no longer automatically drop corpses unless they are wanted.

That could work well.

[emulord]

The reason the possessor of posband werent a big succes was the pretty hard start you had. The possessor is just so extremely weak, you have trouble killing the weakest of monsters so you can get another weak body. Yeeks were stronger in posband than a possessor. I just gave up on them.

You didnt know how to play a possessor :P. I dont post dumps, but I got a few up to level 30, before the coded in monsters start being too rare/ i got bored and nervous because it took forever to get there. You had to know which monsters drop corpses (edit files), then dive and hunt and kill that one specific monster, then survive back to Dlvl1. The -MM shouldnt be used on townies. Ghosts, Dark elves were good targets, as were floating eyes (really good magic device, telepathy). I tried playing centipedes or worms, but they just cant do anything. Spend all your starting gold on a ?Magic mapping and oil to throw. You can kite enemies through walls. I often took the level 1 easy quest and hoped for something killable. Id instantly get to level 6 or 7.

Posessors have a VERY high death rate at level 1/no-body, but once you get them started and grind for consumables, they advance okay. I imagine endgame is as powerful as the easy races.

Edit: Scrawny cat is the only townie worth considering killing. 1 charge MM for lots of stealth, a weak attack, a few more HPs. Dont wear armor at first, you want to be able to deincarnate and run to survive.

[chris]

Help me out with Possessor Rules:

[1] Player picks a normal race and this choice effects their xp penalty. But they only get racial stat adjustments, skill adjustments and powers when they are *not* possessing another body. When possessing, their race will list the current body, and they will gain powers and abilities based on that form instead.

[2] Player cannot possess a new form until they leave their current form. Dispossessing a form has a very high chance of destroying that body.

[3] Possessing a new form can fail, depending on player level vs the new form's level. If it fails and the new form is a unique, there is a chance the new body gets destroyed.

Like I said, I haven't really played possessors before, so I am unsure how other variants have handled these sorts of things.

Thoughts?

EDIT (Based on previous post which I just read):
-OR-
[1] Possessor is a racial choice. Class is monster. The default body is a "Soul" that is a weak incorporeal, pathetic little ghost in search of a body.

I like this better, actually. But I'm curious why all the TOME dumps are Death Mold Possessors (i.e., there is a racial choice).

Help! (Or I'll just do it the second way!)

[AnonymousHero]

As for possessing uniques: We'll cross that bridge when we get there. I think I will make it so uniques no longer automatically drop corpses unless they are wanted.

(Just speaking from personal experience and preferences, here. I don't claim game design knowledge!)

That would kill any interest in Possessors whatsoever for me. Maybe that has to do with the way Possession is set up in ToME 2.x where it's only the corpses who have enough HP (which you "take over" as a Possessor) and equipment slots you care about. In particular the equipment slots tend to dominate the experience of being a Possessor. It's basically only unique corpses that have the golden combination of enough HP and enough arms. Having multiple arms is a Big Deal in *bands.

EDIT: Just noticed "unless they are wanted". That would basically mean that either players startscum until $DESIRED_UNIQUE is wanted or don't care about possessing uniques (which would ruin the class for me; see above). Neither seems like a good option to me given that all *bands derived from Hengband are already prone to start-scumming.

[Nick]

[1] Possessor is a racial choice. Class is monster. The default body is a "Soul" that is a weak incorporeal, pathetic little ghost in search of a body.

This seems best to me. IIRC Pos did it very similarly to this.

[Arjen]

Help me out with Possessor Rules:

[1] Player picks a normal race and this choice effects their xp penalty. But they only get racial stat adjustments, skill adjustments and powers when they are *not* possessing another body. When possessing, their race will list the current body, and they will gain powers and abilities based on that form instead.

[2] Player cannot possess a new form until they leave their current form. Dispossessing a form has a very high chance of destroying that body.

[3] Possessing a new form can fail, depending on player level vs the new form's level. If it fails and the new form is a unique, there is a chance the new body gets destroyed.

Like I said, I haven't really played possessors before, so I am unsure how other variants have handled these sorts of things.

Thoughts?

EDIT (Based on previous post which I just read):
-OR-
[1] Possessor is a racial choice. Class is monster. The default body is a "Soul" that is a weak incorporeal, pathetic little ghost in search of a body.

I like this better, actually. But I'm curious why all the TOME dumps are Death Mold Possessors (i.e., there is a racial choice).

Help! (Or I'll just do it the second way!)

Death Molds are a overpowered race with a very crappy movement/speed. Being a possessor these negatives disappear but the overpowered stays. I always felt it was a munchkin combo like berserker ghosts. But thats why there are so many Death Molds Possessors.

[1] Possessors could just start with a (possessed) Player body (can be destroyed when failed to posses). You would be a crappy warrior when you started, like a rogue without stealth and spell.

[2] In TOME the "soul" you would be between bodies had 1hp no equipment slots. So you had to be 100% sure you were safe.

[3] In TOME you could even find an artifact Player body which couldn't be destroyed when possessing it failed. So you would always have a corpse you can return to when you fail to posses that GWoP destroying the corpse (you did need to carry it with you). But this was still very dangerous to do, same with carrying a corpse as an Ancient dragon wasn't 4.0lbs but more like 500lbs. You would be slow as hell carrying them around. So finding the time and place to posses a corpse was crucial.

Making it a monster race makes sense, or else I would just start with the most crappy race so I would have a very low xp penalty. Why start as a Demigod when you won't get the benefits of one? (Or get OP stuff like Death Molds)

I hope this all made a bit of sense, it's late. (I just copied everything I know about tome possessing.)

*edit* Some more explaining

[AnonymousHero]

To add to Arjen's explanation: In ToME 2.x it isn't actually the act of possessing a body which destroys corpses, it's leaving a body (for the purposes of possessing another one) which does. As long as you have the corpse of your desired body you are guaranteed to be able to possess it. For common monsters getting a body doesn't usually present any problem, you just have to kill enough of them. If you want the body of a unique monster you'd either need to pump the Corpse-preservation skill ridiculously high or just get lucky. (You can actually get two shots at the uniques through an artifact scroll which brought all unique monsters back from the dead, but I digress.)

Pushing Corpse-preservation very high means that lots of corpses litter the dungeon which can get extremely annoying (TMJ). If I ever get around to it, this should probably really be a toggle-able skill so that you can choose when to use your Corpse-preservation skill.

There is another mechanic which is highly dangerous for possessors, namely that overexertion (casting the body's spells without enough mana) will cause a "system shock" which forces you out of your current body with 1 HP -- potentially without leaving the corpse behind. Usually that means instant death. (Wearing a cursed item will prevent leaving the body, but still reduces HP to 1.)

[Brouhaha]

Off topic. So very sorry.

I don't want to derail the Possessor train, but I have one more question about the Death Sword monster class.

Every level up, you gain a plus to hit or damage. As far as I know, there isn't any way to otherwise increase those numbers. But one nasty fight with a "disenchanter [anything]" and your body is suddenly and permanently stripped of some, most, or ALL of those plusses.

Beyond farming for the very rare disenchantment resistance, which isn't a 100% guarantee, is there any other way to avoid this fate?

1) Don't even suggest 'avoid the monsters' because I've had a Dis. Beast summoned right next to me while confused and unable to escape.

2) Should monsters even be able to disenchant your body? Its an intrinsic party of your class. It'd hate to play a rogue whose stealth could be permanently reduced by a type of elemental attack. (Though one would imagine a rogue just set ablaze would lose their stealth at least until they were extinguished.)

3) Does 'disenchantment' do any damage or is it simply meant to wreak havoc on a normal character's gear? Should a Death Sword start off partially or fully resistant to this attack as they are a gearless class?

[chris]

I don't want to derail the Possessor train, but I have one more question about the Death Sword monster class.

Every level up, you gain a plus to hit or damage. As far as I know, there isn't any way to otherwise increase those numbers. But one nasty fight with a "disenchanter [anything]" and your body is suddenly and permanently stripped of some, most, or ALL of those plusses.

Beyond farming for the very rare disenchantment resistance, which isn't a 100% guarantee, is there any other way to avoid this fate?

1) Don't even suggest 'avoid the monsters' because I've had a Dis. Beast summoned right next to me while confused and unable to escape.

2) Should monsters even be able to disenchant your body? Its an intrinsic party of your class. It'd hate to play a rogue whose stealth could be permanently reduced by a type of elemental attack. (Though one would imagine a rogue just set ablaze would lose their stealth at least until they were extinguished.)

3) Does 'disenchantment' do any damage or is it simply meant to wreak havoc on a normal character's gear? Should a Death Sword start off partially or fully resistant to this attack as they are a gearless class?

Disenchantment is the great bane of the Death Sword, much like Blindness is the great bane of the Beholder (I like it when monster races have a stunning weakness . Anyway, here is my Disenchantment summary:

[1] For everybody, disenchantment may mess up player equipment, removing pluses and even pvals on occasion.

[2] For everybody, disenchantment may "disenchant" the player by removing one or more temporary buffs (Things like haste self, double resistance, heroism, blessed, etc).

[3] For the Death-Sword, disenchantment may also mess up player equipment, but this is just the current weapon form. You won't lose pvals this way, but may lose pluses to hit and damage. Note these can be repaired using a town service (in the Fighter's Hall) or with a scroll (*Enchant Weapon*), but only up to a point (+12 max).

[4] For the Death-Sword, disenchantment may also drain absorbed essences. This will happen from time to time, and is simply part of the game, balancing out the Death-Sword's incredible end game power. Of course, you can repair this by just absorbing more stuff, or by having so many essences absorbed that the drain doesn't cause you to lose anything. Early on, though, I would run from those dwarves!

[5] Disenchantment resistance reduces the odds of all of these effects, but does not provide immunity with just a single source. Generally, two sources of disenchantment resistance will give immunity, except for [4] which requires quite a bit more. Like I said, this is the great bane of the Death-Sword!

HTH